Hailey's War

by Jodi Compton

  Serena hadn’t mentioned that. “Sick with what?” I asked.

  “Cancer,” she said.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died,” Nidia said. “It was… it was very sad, he was-” She turned her face toward the window, and I knew she was fighting back tears. I focused back on the road, averting my eyes. She wasn’t really thinking of the cancer guy, of course. She was thinking of Johnny Cedillo, whom I deliberately hadn’t brought up, thinking it still too raw a wound.

  Then she spoke again. She said, “Adriano was smarter than anyone I’d ever known. He studied math for a living, but not math like people usually think of it. Adriano’s work was the kind of math you can’t even really use. I asked him why he was interested in stuff like that, and he said it was like being an explorer in the desert, places no one had gone yet. He liked being out putting his footprints in sand no one had ever walked in before.”

  Nidia wasn’t crying, but she was speaking quickly, as if she was distracting herself from her grief with trivia about the cancer patient.

  “You guys talked a bit, then, it sounds like,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I was working for him for a little more than a year. At first I just came over to make some meals, clean up his apartment. But then he got sicker and needed someone living there, so I moved in.”

  “Where was his family?” I asked. “There wasn’t anyone to help take care of him?”

  “No,” she said. “He had a brother who died, and his mother was already dead, too. His father was still alive, but they didn’t…”

  “Get along?” I supplied.

  “Maybe,” she said. “And he never got married. Adriano didn’t have a life like most people had. His mind was different. He just wanted to be a-what’s the word? Like a student, but even more serious about it…”

  “A scholar?”

  “A scholar,” she said. “He wanted to understand the universe, everything about it. I think God knew that. God took him early so he could finally have all the answers he wanted.”

  God apparently had a protracted, painful way of curing intellectual curiosity, but I didn’t say that.

  nine

  The following night took us through New Mexico, and then, aided by a short roadside nap, I pushed on until we crossed the little handkerchief-corner of westernmost Texas. Maybe my desire to get us over the state line before quitting for the day was symbolic. I was Texan by birth, though I couldn’t remember my early days there. So, around five, Nidia and I were rolling into El Paso.

  I decided to spend a little more money on a hotel, checking us in at a place with a pool and some restaurants nearby. We needed somewhere nice. It would be Nidia’s last night in the States, and I was so tired from driving that my eyes felt gritty. I intended to get a long, long sleep tonight. Starting tomorrow, we were going to drive days instead of nights, and I was going to slow our speed way down. Herlinda had warned me about getting into a dustup with Mexico’s police, and I’d taken her words to heart.

  Nidia and I brought our things in from the car, into a room where the air conditioner was already working hard, exhaling frigid air to keep the Texas heat at bay. I bought a Diet Coke from the vending machine, poured it over ice, and laced it heavily with Bacardi. I drank while sifting through my clothes, looking for something to wear in the pool. I hadn’t brought a suit, but right now, even though it was still about ninety degrees outside, the thought of a long soak appealed to me.

  “Want to come?” I asked Nidia, but she shook her head quickly no.

  I slipped my feet into a pair of rubber flip-flops. “Be thinking about what you want for dinner,” I said. “It’s your last night in America. There must be something you’ll miss.”

  She nodded seriously, as if I’d posed her a study question for an exam later. I drained the last of the rum and Diet Coke and left.

  There were too many little kids in the pool for me to swim laps, but I dived into the deep end, then opened my eyes and navigated around them until I came up for air in the shallow end. Then I sat on the steps, body half in and half out of the water, tipped my head back, and closed my eyes. Though it was nearly six, it felt like midafternoon. We were only a few weeks past the summer solstice, and the sun was fairly high in the Texas sky, the heat maintaining its midday levels.

  When I opened my eyes again, I saw a guy looking my way. He was sitting on one of the lounge chairs, but he hadn’t come here to swim or sunbathe. He was dressed in business casual, dark trousers and white shirt, no jacket or tie. He was around thirty years old, with an athletic build and close-cropped dark hair that looked like it would curl if allowed to grow any longer.

  “How’s the water?” he asked, unashamed to be caught watching me.

  “Come in and find out,” I said, and raised my hand to rub my birthmark lightly, a gesture I thought I’d outgrown.

  “Can’t,” he said. “I didn’t bring anything to swim in.”

  But he got up from his seat and walked to the water’s edge, and sat on his heels to test the water temperature with one hand. I tried to decide how I’d describe his face to someone else: It was clean-shaven and soft, but not in a way that suggested flab or weakness, more like the slight jowliness of a mastiff or a Great Dane, that actually connotes strength. His eyes were Mediterranean, deep-set and heavy-lidded in the way that looks like world-weariness to a casual observer.

  “You from Texas?” he asked me.

  “California,” I said.

  “I’m heading across the border into Mexico tomorrow,” he said. “Just into Juarez City, on business. It’s my first time. I hear there’s no real good time to cross; the traffic’s always backed up at the border. Have you heard anything about that?”

  I shook my head. “I have to cross tomorrow, too, but I haven’t really thought about traffic. It’ll take the time it takes, I guess.”

  We spoke a minute or two longer. I said I was on a “summer road trip” with a friend and left it at that. It was pleasant, after Nidia’s alternating politeness and silences, to be talking easily with another American. I wondered if his friendliness was just that, or if it was the beginnings of a pickup.

  “Well,” he said, “drive safely tomorrow.”

  Just friendliness, then. “You, too,” I said, and watched as he walked back to the pool gate and disappeared from my view.

  “There’s a storm coming, and the people of this sleepy town…”

  The TV was flickering with the sound low. I’d tuned it to the Weather Channel, waiting for the local forecast, but at present, the screen was filled with images of tornadoes wreaking havoc in the Plains States. Nidia was sitting cross-legged on the bed in her nightgown, her hair wet from the bath, watching the TV. I was rearranging the things in my backpack, putting what I needed in easy reach. Earlier, we’d had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. I was ravenous, though I’d done nothing more strenuous than driving, and ordered a barbecued half-chicken and a baked potato and salad. I persuaded Nidia to have a real American meal on her last night here: a hamburger, fries, and a milkshake, the kind that came with extra in a tin cup on the side.

  Still half listening for a change to the forecast for Texas and northern Mexico, I dug my passport out of the duffel bag and transferred it to my messenger bag, where it’d be more convenient in the morning. Nidia, of course, not being a U.S. citizen, only needed her Mexican birth certificate and a photo ID, not a-

  That thought gave me pause. Nidia wasn’t a citizen. Unlike me, once she crossed the border, she had no legal way of getting back. Though she’d need to be in Mexico awhile, maybe even until her grandmother’s death, it seemed to me that Nidia’s family was abandoning her to indefinite life in Mexico.

  Was that so bad? Maybe I was being an American chauvinist. Except there was a reason so many Mexicans, including Nidia’s parents, had come to El Norte. I wondered why Nidia’s mother hadn’t taken it on herself to go back and take care of her ailing mother, instead of sacrificing the hopes and
plans of a daughter just on the cusp of adulthood.

  “Nidia,” I said, picking up my cell phone, “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”

  She nodded, undisturbed.

  I went out to the pool area-it was deserted now, though the water glowed an inviting warm turquoise-and made a call.

  Serena picked up on the third ring. “Hailey, what’s up?” she said. “Where are you? Mexico?”

  “We’re still in Texas,” I said. “Listen, I’m getting a funny feeling about this.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you really know about this family?” I said. “Did you know any of them except Teaser?”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” she repeated.

  I sat down on a chaise, still looking at the calm water of the pool. “Well, Nidia’s only nineteen,” I said. “Once she crosses the border, who knows if she’ll ever get back? Most Mexican parents who bring their families across do so at great risk, so their kids can have better lives. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense that they’re forcing her to go back.”

  “Maybe it makes sense because their grandma is sick and needs help,” she said. “Mexicans are very family-oriented, and-”

  “No. No way,” I said. “Don’t even start with that you’re-white-you-wouldn’t-understand rap. This girl’s fiancé died in Iraq, and then the cancer patient she was taking care of died, and now she’s going off to live in the middle of nowhere with an invalid? I think she’s had enough death and dying. I don’t think it’s right.”

  There was a second or two of silence before Serena spoke. “Has she said she doesn’t want to go?”

  A beat passed before I admitted, “I haven’t asked.”

  “Well, she packed her stuff and got in the car, prima. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “I’m going to ask her straight out.”

  “I don’t think you should interfere,” she said. “This is about family. If this were your father, if he were sick, how far would be too far for you to go to take care of him?”

  I closed my eyes. Nowhere, of course. I would have gone to the other side of the planet.

  “Hailey?” she prompted.

  “If I ask Nidia directly and she says she doesn’t want to go to Mexico, I’m not taking her,” I said.

  “Fine,” Serena said, her tone short. “Go ahead. I can tell you what she’s gonna say, though.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  I disconnected the call and walked back to the room. “Nidia,” I said as soon as I’d closed the door behind me, “are you absolutely sure you want to do this?”

  “Como?” she said, confused.

  I set my cell phone down on the dresser and said, “You’re undocumented. Once you cross the border, you can’t come back. Not easily. The U.S. is allocating more money to border security all the time.”

  She seemed on the verge of speaking, but I needed to finish. “My hand to God, no one can make me muscle you off to Mexico if you don’t want to go. Just say the word, and I’ll turn around and take you back. If you can’t go to your family, Serena would take you in. I’m sure she would, for Teaser’s sake.”

  It seemed like an odd thing to say, given the testy exchange we’d just had on the phone, but I knew Serena. If push came to shove, she’d help this girl.

  “No,” Nidia said, straightening, and there was a sharp tone to her voice I hadn’t heard before. “I want to go. No one’s making me. You aren’t going to change your mind about driving me, are you?”

  I licked my lower lip, surprised at how adamant she seemed. “Nidia,” I began. Then I turned and walked over to the window. The sheer inner curtains were drawn, but I could see the parking lot outside, the peach glow of the lights. I wasn’t looking for anything or at anything: I was about to say something delicate.

  “I don’t want to offend you by talking about something that’s personal, but Serena told me about Johnny, your fiancé,” I said slowly. “He obviously cared about you a great deal. What do you think he’d advise you to do here?”

  There was no hesitation before I heard her say, “Johnny would want me to go.”

  I turned around to face her. There wasn’t any doubt in her green-hazel eyes. “Okay,” I said. “Then I’ll take you.”

  She relaxed. “Good,” she said. Then she added, “My abuela needs me. That’s why.”

  I picked up my cell phone from the dresser. “Listen, I’m going to go out and get a drink,” I said, scooping up my hoodie off the back of a chair. “Don’t wait on me. Get some sleep.”

  I called Serena as soon as I was far enough away from the motel room not to be overheard through the walls. She obviously recognized my number on caller ID and answered with, “So?”

  “She wants to go,” I said, turning my face up against a light breeze. “I’m taking her.”

  “Told you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, watching the white lights of the freeway in the distance. “Serena, you know I love you, right?”

  “Wow, you get over being mad quick,” she said, amused.

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” I told her. “What I’m saying is, I love you, but don’t ever throw my dead father into a conversation to score points off me again.”

  I’d hoped that the world-weary-but-nice-looking guy from poolside would be in the bar, but he didn’t show in the time it took me to nurse two margaritas, so finally I just paid and left.

  ten

  Mexico.

  Crossing the border wasn’t a big deal. The traffic was the worst of it, inching up to the low brown structure of the border checkpoint, where forbidding signs advised that bringing a firearm into Mexico was punishable by Mexican law. But after showing our various forms of ID-my driver’s license and passport, Nidia’s Mexican birth certificate-we were told to drive on. They didn’t even ask about a gun. I smiled and finger-waved like an excited tourist as Nidia and I pulled away, the Airweight taped under my seat.

  Then we were into the crush and color of Juarez, American logos competing with old Colonial architecture. Most of it I’d expected from pictures. Little things surprised me, though, like passing a storefront church advertising meetings of Alcoholicos Anonimos. You didn’t expect things like that in Mexico.

  After that, we drove on the main highways in broad, bright daylight, jockeying among big semi-trailers. It was hot, and I worried about the air-conditioning straining the Impala’s engine, no matter how new and well-maintained the car, so I cycled the a/c on and off, alternating with the whipping wind of two rolled-down windows.

  Our second day, we started out early, because this was the day I believed I’d get Nidia to her destination. I wanted to leave us plenty of time to navigate the smaller, secondary roads we’d take once we got off Highway 16. We’d be climbing up into the mountains, and I had visions of the Impala inching along behind a flock of sheep being driven by a sheepherder on foot, or following a lumbering farm truck at twenty-eight miles an hour.

  And I was worried about Nidia, who’d shown a minor tendency toward car sickness even on the straighter roads. She never complained, but several times when I stopped for gas, she’d asked me for ginger ale, to settle her stomach.

  Now we were beginning to climb up into the mountains. The sun had just gone down, and the traffic had thinned out as the trees and brush on the roadside got thicker. The surrounding landscape reminded me of the mountains of eastern Nevada, but more extreme: steeper, lusher, more remote.

  Nidia had taken out her knitting again. When I asked her what she was working on, she told me it was to be a sweater: It got cold in the mountains at night, regardless of the season. I had to take her word for it-not about the weather, but that the knitting project would someday be a sweater. It was shapeless now, though I liked the yarn she was using, a dun brown variegated with pale pink.

  We didn’t talk much, and I cruised the radio dial for any kind of American music. Like Herlinda had suggested, I’d taken to driving down the center of the road-there
was no dividing line, anyway, and no traffic going the opposite direction. Once or twice, I thought I spotted a car about a half-mile behind us; I saw it on lower switchbacks in the highway, when I glanced in the rearview or out the window.

  Ahead, in a steep mountain face, the dark opening of a tunnel yawned before the Impala. I slowed down and edged the car to the right side of the road in case of oncoming traffic, and as we drove into the narrow dimness of the tunnel, the radio cut out as though turned off. I reached down to flick on the headlights, and they flashed off what looked like a low wall of dark metal in front of us, a wall that resolved itself into a stalled car, sideways, blocking the road.

  “Jesus!” I hit the brakes so hard that Nidia’s body snapped against the restraint of her seat belt and the shapeless knitting project bounced off the glove box and onto the floor. We skidded to a stop about six feet from the dark, stalled sedan.

  “Sorry,” I said to Nidia, touching her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Then I noticed headlights behind us. It was the car I’d caught glimpses of in the rearview. Unlike us, they didn’t have to brake hard or skid to a stop. They rolled up behind us to a smooth stop. It looked a lot like planning.

  There was also a strong similarity in the make and color of the two cars, front and back. The driver of the car behind us had stopped in a diagonal position, so that we were effectively hemmed in. I did not like this.

  “Que pasa?” Nidia said, frightened into her native language.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I reached down and hit the electronic controls, locking all four doors at once.

  Now, in front of us and behind, men were emerging from the cars. White men, well-built, with guns.

  “Que pasa?” Nidia said again. “Que pasa?”

  “Calmate,” I said, although I wasn’t at all sure that calming down was appropriate.

  The men spread out around us in a circle. Seven white men in rural Mexico. This didn’t make any sense.